


Almost Perfect

by Tierfal



Category: Death Note
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-30
Updated: 2010-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-06 20:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An out-there AU, which may or may not be steampunkish, in which Mello's family is very rich, and Matt happens to work in the household.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Almost Perfect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jenwryn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenwryn/gifts).



> Jenwryn had [this](http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc157/tierfal/mattsceenshotsmall.jpg) from [here](http://tukiakarinoshita.web.fc2.com/index2.html) as her desktop background. This was inevitable. XD Atmospherically very inspired by some things Eltea and I had written a while before. :)

Mello hates the stupid parties.

It's all hand-shaking and kowtowing and how-do-you-do and oh-yes-I-remember, when in fact what he remembers is the way his father turns to him, in the car, at the bottom of every sweeping white drive, and warns him around the headrest what will happen if he makes an ass of himself this time.

Mello has never done anything dishonorable in anyone else's home—never put a shining-leather-clad toe out of line, never let his tailored suit slide askew. He smiles, commiserates, congratulates, puts on the front, dons the mask, and doesn't let it down until they're in the car again, and he's dozing against the window from the pure exhaustion of holding up the lie.

He's almost perfect, but his father sees the "almost."

Mello hates his father, too.

He hates pretty much everything, come to think of it, and even at _their_ stupid parties, even in his own home, decked as it is in streamers and flowers and graceful figures gliding, it makes him feel trapped and suffocated, and this time he drinks a bit too much champagne.

Deftly Halle snatches his flute away and stows it on her tray, balancing it out of reach, and she tells him, brightly but with that volumes-filled look, that it's a lovely night, and maybe he should get some air.

Mello tries the balcony first, but there's a cluster of his father's business partners in the corner, conspiring, and they're not what he's looking for.

Ivy curls ostentatiously up the wall beside him as he strolls down the staircase toward the garden, and he drags his fingers down the wrought-iron railing, counting out the hiding places in his head.

He needn't have worried, however, because Matt's sprawled on the white marble bench by the oleander, smoking idly and staring at the sky.

Mello sits next to him, stretching his legs out on the stone tiles and crossing them at the ankles. He admires the gleam of the moonlight on his shoes and breathes the nicotine-laced mist that Matt blows deliberately in his direction.

"Halle's covering for you again," he remarks unnecessarily to the redhead at his side. "You've got that woman wrapped around your finger."

"It's probably more that she wants the two of us to elope to Monaco," Matt replies. "She's willing to do whatever it takes."

Mello makes a point of waving the cigarette smoke away with one hand. "Monaco?"

Matt shrugs, grinning at the stars. "Why not?"

Mello frowns, fails to generate an adequate rejoinder, and plucks Matt's cigarette from its owner's fingers instead. He takes a long, long drag and pretends not to notice the amusement in Matt's eyes.

"You've been drinking," the other boy announces.

Mello passes the cigarette back. "What makes you think that?"

Matt tosses the thing into the birdbath, embers hissing, to free both hands for setting meaningfully on Mello's waist.

"Because you're getting brave," he explains.

And it's true, actually, because Mello's taking his hand and leading the way past the gazebo and across the lawn, to the edge of the wood they learned as children, when Matt was just some cook's kid and Mello desperately needed a friend.

He found one, and he hasn't let go since.

The grass tickles at the back of his neck, and Matt's mouth leaves a warm trail of wandering kisses up his throat; practiced, faintly-calloused hands graze his ribs, and he curses the finery that gets in the way.

Mello buries one hand in Matt's hair and drags him closer, free hand fumbling with Matt's belt buckle, but his savior-tormentor chuckles richly against his jaw and pins his wrist to his stomach before the endeavor has met with success.

"Slow down, sweetheart," he whispers, and Mello's spine tries to arch away from the shiver that races towards his tailbone. "If we get grass stains on your shoulders, the whole game's up. What do you say we practice Act One now, and we can try the climax later tonight?"

Mello knows very well what's safe, sane, and circumspect, and what is not—and he _wants_ this, wants the damp soil and the dewy grass and the endless black sky, wants Matt holding him down and teasing out the too-deep pleasure that makes him whole, wants the danger and the skin and the hot lust anchored in an underlying warmth so profoundly indestructible that it makes the rest all right.

And the fact that he wants it, needs it, loves it, more than anything else in the muddle of his life, is precisely what makes him unwilling to risk Matt in general for Matt in the grass.

He has an awfully nice bed, anyway; it'd be a shame to let it go unused.

So he sighs, and pouts, and takes Matt's kisses as recompense, and nibbles at the collarbones available around Matt's disheveled shirt, and grips Matt's hips to draw them close against his own.

He is not going to be the only one praying that the party ends early tonight.

Ten minutes and a few thousand promise-threat-descriptions later, Mello has made good use of some chilly water in the restroom, and Halle is eyeing him knowingly and refusing to give him another drink.

Mello shakes some hands, does some nodding, and compliments the orchestra, and if his cheeks go pink more than once before the festivities have wound down, it's because it's far too stuffy in the ballroom, and not because he meets Matt's eyes and gets a wink.


End file.
